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Hours before the Star reported the names of the two victims killed early Tuesday when they were caught in the crossfire of the worst shooting spree in Toronto history, their identities were publicly known within social media.

Even before police confirmed the identity of Shyanne Charles, 14, who died in the block party shooting, dozens of her friends in her Scarborough neighbourhood shared their grief on Twitter.

The Star’s newsroom was well aware of the information that was circulating widely in real time through Twitter and other social media sites including Reddit and Facebook. But it held back from publishing the names of those killed until reporters could verify.

Racing against the digital clock, that too often these days pits speed against accuracy, reporters in the newsroom worked the phones, contacting police, community workers and others who might be able to verify the identities of those killed. Out in the streets, in the Danzig St. neighbourhood where the shooting occurred, reporters sought out reliable sources to confirm the names.

There was some degree of frustration from those who felt “pretty sure” the information mined from Twitter was accurate and should be reported online. But senior editors remained steadfast that the Star must verify the names of the dead before publishing.

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Of course, “pretty sure” is never good enough in journalism, and never more so than when reporting the names of individuals who lost their lives in such a tragedy. Editors made the right call here.

As Jane Davenport, who took over this week as the Star’s managing editor, told me: “The availability of more information in real time doesn’t change our responsibility to report facts only when we’re satisfied they’re true. Twitter can obviously be a great resource in terms of leads — during breaking news stories in particular — but tweeted information could easily be wrong.

“If we report without verifying, we’re wrong too, and that’s not a chance we can take.”

Toronto’s worst shooting spree ever may well be the first such tragedy in which so much information from people on the scene was so widely available through social media. Hundreds of tweets about the party and its aftermath circulated publicly in real time, with much compelling information revealed and undoubtedly much rumour and innuendo shared.

For journalists bound by professional standards, of which verification is the foundation, this made reporting this story both easier and more difficult. It was as if you brought all the chatter of the town square, the water cooler and a high-school hallway together and then had to sort out what was actually relevant and true.

The Star did publish a small sample of the tweets from before and after the chaos. It was a carefully selected and, to me, relatively innocuous sample of information that’s publicly available to anyone, anywhere with a Twitter account.

But the newsroom held back from publishing much of the Twitter chatter, reasoning — properly, I think — that a good deal more of it required verification before publication in the Toronto Star.

Even with this cautious approach, questions were raised by the mother of a 15-year-old boy whose tweets and Twitter profile picture were published. Given his age, and the widespread fears of further danger in the neighbourhood, she was upset to see his words and photo in the Star.

As I explained to her, her son tweeted prolifically and everything he tweeted is public. And, of course, just by looking at his Twitter account, there is no way of knowing his age. Still, I understand her concerns and think this raises questions about whether the Star should verify tweets with their authors before we publish them.

Even as the Star debated this, it was evident that others are not bound by the same professional standards as the Star’s journalists. On Reddit, a user-generated news site, someone who goes by the name BitchslappedByLogic” composed an entire narrative of the shooting by aggregating tweets from those at the scene.

The post, which is indeed fascinating in its glimpse into the hearts and minds of those most affected by the tragedy, has gone viral, hailed by some as a triumph of social media over mainstream media in providing compelling information in real time.

The author makes clear that he makes “no claims of accuracy. I’m just relaying what I’m finding.”

I don’t have space here to go into how this fits into the ongoing debate about the evolution of journalism in a digital world. Suffice to say, much of what was published in the Reddit post is not publishable in the Star, given our current journalistic standards.

As a commenter on the Reddit post, put it: “Formal news organizations generally have to do a lot of verification before reporting on theories. There’s more responsibility and liability.”

Indeed, the responsibility to verify before publication remains at the heart of the Star’s standards. However journalism evolves, that should not change.

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